The First Lutheran Hymnals of 1524
The year 2024 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Lutheran hymnal. During the winter of 1523/24 Luther and his colleagues in Wittenberg began expressing their theology in poetry and music. Like contemporary news ballads the early Lutheran hymns were first circulated from Wittenb...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2023
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| In: |
Lutheran quarterly
Year: 2023, Volume: 37, Issue: 4, Pages: 373-406 |
| IxTheo Classification: | KAG Church history 1500-1648; Reformation; humanism; Renaissance KBB German language area KDD Protestant Church RD Hymnology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The year 2024 marks the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Lutheran hymnal. During the winter of 1523/24 Luther and his colleagues in Wittenberg began expressing their theology in poetry and music. Like contemporary news ballads the early Lutheran hymns were first circulated from Wittenberg on single printed sheets, which were reprinted by printers in other towns and cities. One of them, Jobst Gutknecht of Nuremberg, reprinted a collection of eight of the early Wittenberg hymns, thus creating the first Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch (Eight Song Book). Later the same year, 1524, two different hymnals with similar contents were published in Erfurt. Like Gutknecht's Achtliederbuch the twenty-five hymns they contain were reprinted from single sheet Wittenberg broadsides. Towards the end of 1524 a set of part-books were published in Wittenberg with Walter's polyphonic settings of hymns mostly by Luther, who also provided a preface. Luther's close connection to the project has accorded the collection a kind of foundational status as the primary Wittenberg hymnal of 1524. However, there is evidence-explored in this article-that there must have a been a basic Wittenberg collection of thirty-two primary hymns that pre-date both Walter's part-books for choirs, and the 1524 hymnal specifically issued for the Wittenberg congregations. |
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| ISSN: | 2470-5616 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Lutheran quarterly
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/lut.2023.a911858 |